The next day began badly with a series of omens. First, the sacred birds of Rome refused to eat their breakfast, which definitely signalled bad news. Then, when Tiberius was leaving the house, he badly stubbed his toe on the doorframe, breaking the nail and filling his sandal with blood. This might have been because people had kept him up all night with the shouting and lamenting, but doors and doorways had great symbolic significance for the Romans, and they saw this as the gods telling Tiberius to go back to bed. Tiberius wasn’t listening. He kept going, only to have a tile thrown at him by
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